Page 86 of Broken King

With a big smile, he lifts up his left hand. “This one?” He tries to joke, but in his eyes, I see he understands what I’m saying.

I roll him over onto his back and kiss him. “No, the other one. You don’t have to hide it anymore. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I just wanted to tell you that.”

He looks over to his right arm and winces. “It’s taken me a long time to come to grips with it. I can’t tell you how many mornings I woke up and looked down at it, hating how it looked and felt, and all I wanted to do was pull the covers up over my head and hide away.”

I look at it too. Yes, it’s hard to see knowing what he used to look like and how much his right hand meant to him, but that’s only one part of the whole person I love.

“It’s who you are, and because of that, I love it just like I love the rest of you.”

For another moment or two, he stares at what’s left of his arm and then turns to face me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever love it, but I accept what my life is with it now. My therapist says that’s a big step in the right direction.”

“It is.”

“I told her about you too,” he says with such sweetness I can’t help but kiss him.

“Oh, yeah? What did she say?”

Ronan hesitates for a second but then answers, “She said to take things slowly. I think I’m going to have to tell her that plan is out the window.”

“My father said pretty much the same thing. I told him he didn’t have to worry.”

Pulling me to him, he wraps his left arm around me, and I rest my head on his chest just above his heart. “They don’t understand. It’s us, Ronan and Kate. We never took things slowly, did we?”

I shake my head as I remember how we were barely dating for two weeks before we said I love you the last time. “No. We’ve been in love since about ten minutes after our first date.”

He squeezes me to his body and presses a kiss to my forehead. “You’ve always been the one for me. My Kate.”

I close my eyes as a feeling of complete bliss washes over me. I’ll always be his Kate.

And he’ll always be my Ronan.

“So, I have a surprise for you,” I say softly against his chest.

“For me?”

Lifting my head, I look at him and smile. “Yeah. Just tell me when you want it.”

He thinks about it for just a brief second. “Now’s good.”

“Okay. We have to go into the bathroom for it, though.”

Ronan cocks an eyebrow and looks at me strangely. “The bathroom is where my surprise is?”

I get up off the bed and hurry over to my bag. “I got it when we stopped at that store on our way here.”

Still unsure what I’m doing, he sits up. “Since this is the first time we’ve been together in years, it’s not a pregnancy test. Or do they have tests that show you immediately after you had sex that you’re pregnant?”

I grab the white plastic bag and start walking to the bathroom to set the bag of goodies in the sink. “No, I don’t think they have those yet. Follow me.”

He gets off the bed and comes into the bathroom behind me. I point to the toilet and say, “You can sit on either the toilet lid or the bathtub. Your choice.”

Ronan stands in the doorway naked deciding where he wants to sit for a moment before walking over to the toilet. I quickly grab a towel and throw it over the seat to cover it.

“Just in case they don’t clean well enough all the time.”

As he sits, he says, “You know, I would have never thought of that. Guys just sit their naked asses down anywhere.”

“Ready for the surprise?” I ask as I eagerly wait to show him what I secretly bought.

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